A native of Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Fundador ‘Mytor’ Gamboa Tipon II was a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Commerce, major in Management Accounting and a Corps d’ Elite Outstanding Student Awardee of University of St. La Salle. He also finished Bachelor in Secondary Education (supplemental) at West Negros University and is a LET board passer, major in Mathematics.
He is a member of USLS Maskara Theater Ensemble and National Commission for Culture and the Arts-Committee on Dramatic Arts, resident playwright of The Performance Laboratory, and a 2012 Iyas Creative Writing fellow. He is an Iyas Literary Awards-Hiligaynon One Act Play winner who won Second Prize for “Palad” in 2013 and First Prize for “Emo Trip” in 2012. He is a freelance commissioned writer, acting/declamation coach, stage actor and director. His other written and staged plays include “Ang Kalbaryo sang Krus,” “Por La Sangre,” “Rizal Is My President” (adaptation of Joshua So’s play based on Napoleon Almonte’s book of the same title), “Siete Pecados,” “Orakulo,” and “Café Specials.”

Described as the enfant terrible of Bikol contemporary writings, Cordero is a widely anthologized writer in the country today. He has five poetry collections in Filipino and Bikol. His recent collections are Canticos: Apat Na Boses (UST Publishing House, 2013) and Labi (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2013). He co-edited an anthology of essays, The Naga We Know (Anvil, 2013) with Paz Verdades Santos. Before the year ends, he is set to release his first anthology of short stories, Kulto ni Santiago (University of the Philippines Press) and his first full length film Angustia, produced by Cinema One Originals
At a young age, Cordero started honing his writings through formal literary workshops offered by Kabulig Writers Group in Naga City, the Ateneo de Manila Institute of Literary Arts and Practices (AILAP) and the University of the Philippines Institute of Creative Writing (UP-ICW). He has received literary prizes from the Premio Tomas Arejola Literary Prize, Homelife Poetry Contest, the Palanca for poetry, fiction and essay, the 6th Madrigal-Gonzales Best First Book Award, the NCCA Writers’ Prize for Bikol poetry in 2007 and the Maningning Miclat Poetry Prize in Filipino, in 2009. His third book, “Pusuanon: Mga Bersong Bikol” was a finalist in the 2007 National Book Awards for Best Poetry. In 2011, he published a translation to Bikol, Rainier Maria Rilke’s selected poems, Minatubod Ako Sa Diklom (Ateneo de Naga University Press).
As an academic based in the region, Cordero continues to be active in Bikol literary and cultural scene through his many advocacies and participation in various literary and art workshops, read-along series, conferences and other cultural events that promote literature and scholarship, civic participation, environmental concerns and cultural regeneration. He has delivered his scholar papers on literature and culture here and abroad. He is a founding member of the Burikbutikan Artists Collective, a group of local visual artists and writers that spearheads art exhibits and cultural forums particularly in Camarines Sur. He is also a board member of Philippine PEN International.
Cordero also serves as consultant and translator for the U.P. Surian ng Wikang Filipino, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino. He has represented Bikol in the Philippine International Writers Festival in 2009 and 2011 respectively. Cordero writes a regular column on arts and culture for Bicol Mail and Vox Bikol and is an assistant professor at the Ateneo de Naga University.